LITMIR.BIZ

       Ten Years Earlier

      The first time someone said that Karen was gone for good was during the week after she disappeared. People – mothers – didn’t just leave their kids without warning for days on end, unless there was something wrong. Very wrong. Depressed, maybe, after the birth of her second child. Or unhappy in her relationship. Her boyfriend was not a local, and he was a few years older than her. Who knew what went on behind the closed doors of their house?

      Not Sarah Havenant, or any of her friends, although they were the last to see her. It was the day Sarah moved back to Barrow, Maine, after four years of college and then four more of medical school, ready to start her residency at the local hospital, and she and her friends had gotten together in a bar. Reconnect. Catch up on old times. Talk about what was to come.

      Sarah, Jean, Franny, Luke. The old gang, at least the ones who were still around.

      And Karen. Karen, mom of two boys, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. Karen, who was now missing.

      Sarah didn’t remember Karen leaving the bar. It was sometime before 2 a.m., which was the time she had staggered into a cab with Franny and Luke. Alec – a guy they had bumped into – had offered to drive but, drunk as she was, Sarah had been sensible enough to turn his kind offer down.

      Franny and Luke didn’t remember seeing her leave either, and neither did Jean, who had left early; she worked on an organic farm in the summers and had to get ready for the farmers’ market the following day.

      But sometime in between Jean’s early departure and 2 a.m., Karen had left too.

      Although, as it turned out, vanished was a better word.

      The next day, Sarah had run into Karen’s boyfriend, and father of her two sons. She didn’t know him – they’d met briefly once or twice when she was back in town – and he’d asked if she knew where Karen was.

      Sarah shook her head. Is Karen OK? she said.

      She didn’t come home last night, he replied. I woke up around four with this guy – he was with his sons and he kissed the one-year-old on the top of the head – and she wasn’t there. I called her cell but there was no answer.

      He’d called around. Tried the local hospital. But there was no trace of her.

      At some point in the night, impossible though it seemed, she had disappeared.

      And, with nearly a week gone, it looked like she wasn’t planning on coming back anytime soon.